What the Serpent Remembers

Madonna Lusina makes the finest mirrors on Murano. Sit with one long enough, by candlelight, and it will show you the days you are about to have. She has sold futures to merchants’ wives and nervous patricians. On Saturdays her shop shuts at noon. Nobody asks why. She has spent a great deal of effort making sure nobody asks why.

Venice, Carnival, 1509. The League of Cambrai has been signed against the Republic, the city is dancing anyway, and someone is buying every seeing-glass she makes through men who do not know whom they work for. Behind every buyer’s future, her glass now shows the same thing: a grey bird, the colour of ash, over a city on water.

Raziel came down from heaven for a woman a very long time ago, and has spent every century since watching instead. He draws maps now, of places that do not officially exist, and her mirrors have started appearing on them. He knew what she was the moment her door opened. He has not said so. She knows he knows. She has not said that either.

A masked kiss between two people pretending to be strangers. A map that tells the truth about everything, including the one thing it never should have. And a gloved buyer in a house lined with mirrors, who wants to know which city burns, and has worked out exactly when the glassmaker cannot come to the door.

Hidden identity. Carnival masks. Mutual secrets. Two immortals who are both waiting for the other one to lie.

What the Serpent Remembers is Book 3 of The Unmarked Courts, a series of connected dark romantasies. A complete love story with a happy ending.